A New Awareness

I have had the opportunity to work out with equipment the past 3 weeks. I have been stepping for a half hour on the recumbent stepper. Then I lift weights; arm curls, bicep curls, arm extensions, ab crunches, etc. The first few repetitions seem easy but by the 10th, 11th and 12th repetition on the second set, my muscles are quivering. I had a busy and drama filled day at work so this was a good way to work off some of that tension before going home. Tonight, as I go about my normal activities like walking the dog, moving the sprinkler, watering the plants, feeding the canary, I have a new awareness of the muscle fibers in my arms and upper back. I'm feeling muscles that I wasn't aware of before. My muscles don't hurt exactly. I'm just aware of using them now. It's a good thing.

Tentative Plans For A Road Trip

Before buy a motorcycle, I thought it prudent to rent one. Who knows? I may freak out riding on the road when cars come close to me. Better to know that before shelling out big bucks on a bike. So three of us have plans to play hooky from work on Monday (a low traffic day) and rent motorcycles from a place in Maplewood. Two of us will rent, one already owns a motorcycle. I'm getting the smallest one they got - a Suzuki 250 cc. Or is it a Honda? Anyway, it's a small one. We'll tool around on the back roads, have lunch in Hudson, Wisconsin, and return the rental. From there I can decide if I want to buy one. Motorcycle riding is risky. Almost everything I do has some degree of risk. The question is, how much risk am I willing to take and how well do I think I can manage those risks?

Must Remember to Ask Specific Questions

Offspring #2: "Is it OK to have a few friends over Saturday night?"

A Perfect Day for Weeding the Garden

The soil was moist from the rain yesterday. The weather is not too hot, not too cold. The strong wind kept the mosquitoes and flies away. It was the perfect day to weed the garden.

Getting Too Close For Comfort

In August, my book club is reading "The Lost Life of Eva Braun." I started reading it early because it has over 500 pages and it takes a while to read it. Eva Braun was Adolf Hitler's significant other. This book is unusual because it has a woman author. In the past, only male authors wrote about Eva's life. The author's mother was born in Germany the same year as Eva which gives her version more credibility in my mind. The book has many, many footnotes which you can skip if you want to save time. I'm not enjoying this book. I would never have read this book of my own accord. The book bothers me the most because it is turning Hitler into a real person. Until I read this book I hadn't known that I thought of Hitler as some kind of comic book villain. He was a real person. The book talks about his parents and his upbringing in Germany. He traveled and vacationed in Bavaria. I had relatives who came from Bavaria. I learned that he had an undescended testicle and how he preferred women who were decades younger than himself. He liked the fact that she paid no attention to politics. When he spent time with Eva he could escape from the fiasco he was creating in

his own country. He really liked it when Eva wore the traditional Bavarian dress as seen in the second photo. Eva's father was not too happy that his eldest daughter was living in sin with a Nazi. He wrote to Hitler to complain. Eventually he had to make peace with the relationship because he feared Hitler's wrath. Hitler had a sister with a developmental disability. His family history included some incest which may be why his sister had a disability. He himself had an incestuous relationship with his niece. I have 150 pages left to read in this book. I'll be glad when it is done. I haven't liked the book but I know I'll enjoy the stimulating discussion at the August meeting of the book club.

Summer Time

I had a wild and crazy day at work today so to relax Blunder and I took another bike ride. We usually go about 5 miles. She runs the first mile and a half. We stop so she can drink out of a pond. She runs another mile or so and if she looks tired, I stop and ask her if she wants to take a rest and ride in the basket. She jumps up and into the basket she goes. She sits on a towel in the wire basket and watches the scenery go by. Tonight the air was refreshingly clean after the rain and smelled SOOOOO good. The air smelled flowery. Lots of flowers are blooming now including the milkweeds (shown above). As we pedaled along we saw barn swallows, chickadees, and bluebirds. Monarchs and yellow butterflies flitted through the tall weeds. The sky held big puffy white cumulus clouds. I like summer clouds so much more than winter clouds. I love their colors and their shapes. We passed a couple soccer games being played. Parents sat on the sidelines in their collapsible chairs observing their offspring. Oh, I remember those days. A strong breeze blew out of the east forcing me to pedal down the usually easy downhill spots. It's summertime and the living is easy.

Things That Touch My Feet In The Lake

“I discovered I scream the same way whether I’m about to be devoured by a Great White or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot.”Axl Rose (Guns’n'Roses)

This quote by Axl Rose cracks me up. I am the same way. When I am swimming and something touches my foot, I react to a huge danger before I know what hits me. I do the same when I see a snake. See a snake? Scream. Immediately regret the scream. Look around to see if I was observed screaming. I've never been bitten by a snake. Once, when I was a child, a cousin put a snake down my back under my shirt as I was sitting in the field. I reflexively stood up and the snake tumbled to the ground. I wasn't too happy with this cousin especially when I saw him running away and laughing at me. I was more upset by his laughing than the snake. Several cousins were there and they watched him do it so they were all laughing. I have no reason to scream at snakes. I just can't help it. I found a snake in the dishwasher once. I freaked. I was ready to hire an exterminator. Offspring #2 picks up the snake and kisses it, brings it outside and puts it down on the ground right next to the house. She couldn't carry it to the other side of the yard? I fear mice too. See a mouse? Scream. Even when I know to expect it, I still scream. I have mice living in my outdoor shed. I know when I pry open that shed door, I will be seeing mice. I still scream. Everybody has their fears. I know one retired maintenance man at work who would not take a walk outside in the fall. This guy was a smoker and a tattooed biker. His fear? A lusty buck might attack him. I understand deer do have their rutting season and they have been know to aggress against humans, but really, what are the chances? I worry more about the deer hunters than the deer. Another brave friend of mine, able to deal with aggressive or unhappy personalities, has a fear of wasps with dangly legs. I don't especially like dangly legged wasps but I don't especially fear them. As I child I would often swim in the lake. Close to shore the constant swimming of children disturbed the lake bottom and the weeds were at a minimum. Out in deeper water, the weeds were thick. Out farther than that the weeds didn't grow to the top of the water. To get to that deep open water, we had to swim through the weedy patch. Weeds would touch my feet and legs. Sometimes a weedy tendril would wrap around my leg or ankle. I didn't like that feeling and would swim as horizontally as possible to avoid it. The weeds wrapping around my legs would scare me. I feared getting tangled and trapped underwater. But I didn't let the fear keep me from swimming in the deeper water. Often snapping turtles or painted turtles would swim with us. I'd be treading water and a turtle would poke it's head up next to me. Maybe me swimming in the lake scared the turtle like a snake in the house scared me because that turtle would take one look at me, widen it's little turtle eyes, and submerge only to pop again 25 feet away.